Bills filed to end smoking in bars, riverboats and casinos for March 29 session

BATON ROUGE -- A Baton Rouge area lawmaker late Thursday filed two bills aimed at banning smoking in bars as well as gambling outlets like riverboats and the New Orleans land-based casino.

Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia, who got a ban on smoking in most public places through the Legislature in in 2006, filed Senate Bill 348 that would ban smoking in any bar and in casinos, video poker and slot machine parlors, race tracks and off-track-betting parlors.

Those areas are the ones that were exempted from the smoking ban Marrioneaux's original bill covered. The earlier bill banned smoking in restautrants, public buildings, schools, hospitals, doctors' offices and other locations.

Attempts to expand the ban to bars and gambling outlets in subsequent years have failed.

Marionneaux's second bill, Senate Bill 334, is narrower in scope and is aimed at ending smoking in "any restaurant or bar if food is served at any time" when it is open to the public. It does not address casinos, but could affect restaurants and bars with video poker machines.

Now, an outlet must have more than 50 percent of its sales in liquor to be called a bar and qualify as a smoking environment. Marionneaux's bill would take that away and say any time the facility is open and serves food, smoking would be prohibited.

Chris Young, one of the liquor industry's chief lobbyists, said he and the gambling interests will try to defeat the bills.

"There is no outcry to pass this legislation," Young said. "We are going to fight it. ... We will take this seriously."

Marionneaux could not be reached for comment.

As of late Thursday, 1,445 bills were filed in advance of the session -- 973 in the House and 472 in the Senate. The deadline to pre-file bills is 5 p.m. today.

After that, each legislator is limited to filing no more than five bills after the session begins. The final batch of bills can be filed no later April 20.